


Nakht

by DistractedDream



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Kul Elna, Mommy Issues, Naming TKB, Naming Yami Bakura, Raising the Dead, seance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistractedDream/pseuds/DistractedDream
Summary: Ryou lit the lanterns around him as the sunset and settled himself into a comfortable position on the rug. The salt flowed evenly from his fingertips as he drew the circle, voice soft but steady as he chanted a protective incantation. He stopped before finishing the circle, taking a deep breath. "Good luck, spirit," he murmured as he closed the circle and dropped back into his soul room.
 Ryou tries to help the spirit make peace with his past by contacting the ghosts of Kul Elna.Another mini-fic for Halloween.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on Twitter @DistracteDream and on Tumblr @DistractedDream. Please leave kudos or comments if you liked this! I appreciate every single one.

"You can't let go of the Ring, alright? Stay in the circle and don't let go." To all appearances, Ryou sat in the desert, talking to himself. The dune buggy he'd rented sat parked in the distance as the sun disappeared over the nearby cliffs. "I can't promise this will work." He swept his bangs out of his face with a heavy sigh.

Spread out on the flattest plot of sand he could find were several lanterns, a rug he'd bought at the local market, a small statue of Osiris blessed by a priest, salt and a tiny bottle of holy water. The spirit had mocked him for the holy water but it made Ryou feel safe and so it stayed. The Millennium Ring hung heavy around Ryou's neck, his muscles aching from carrying it, the pendant seeming to increase with weight as he had arrived in the Egyptian desert. There was nothing around, save the distant glimmer of the Nile in the setting sun. No landmarks, no trees, no ruins, yet Ryou knew this was the right spot. He knew because the spirit knew, as sure as Ryou was of his own name.

Kul Elna.

"Once I cast the circle, we'll trade." The spirit didn't answer, no pithy comeback or exasperated snaps for once. He simply lingered in the back of Ryou's mind and listened. "If a wind comes up, we're screwed. If the sand under the rug shifts and disturbs the circle, we'll lose it. There are so many things that could go wrong." Ryou tipped his face up to the darkening sky. He had dabbled in the occult, but he'd never made an attempt on this scale. Ninety-nine souls should linger in what had been the spirit's village. There was no way to know yet if Ryou would be successful in reaching any of them - or if it would simply be a cacophony of souls trying to get through. "Are you sure...?"

In the back of his mind, the spirit nodded and waited. Ryou knew the spirit must be nervous since he usually didn't have the patience to let Ryou work. Setting up the diorama for the Memory World had taken several extra days simply due to the spirit's interruptions and complaints. That he was subdued and unobtrusive sent a chill through Ryou. This heka as the spirit called it was magic heavier and darker than Ryou had ever tried before and Ryou infused light into the spell workings where he could.

And he prayed that he would be alive at the end.

Ryou lit the lanterns around him as the sunset and settled himself into a comfortable position on the rug. The salt flowed evenly from his fingertips as he drew the circle, voice soft but steady as he chanted a protective incantation. He stopped before finishing the circle, taking a deep breath. "Good luck, spirit," he murmured as he closed the circle and dropped back into his soul room.

Or he tried to withdraw to his soul room. His back - or what his mind perceived as his back - hit a stone wall, keeping him within the conjoined space of their minds. He could see and feel everything the spirit did but unless he exerted a great effort, he couldn't control his physical body any more. Having spent most of his energy on casting the spell, Ryou could only sit down and lean back against the wall. The spirit's voice, deeper than Ryou's though they used the same vocal cords, repeated the invocation Ryou had taught him, both in Ryou's English tongue and in painstakingly translated Arabic. To Ryou's surprise, the spirit repeated it a third time in a language Ryou didn't recognize.

The desert remained silent after the incantation, long enough that Ryou feared it hadn't worked. Still, if the spirit was content to wait, Ryou decided he would too. He felt his hair blow around his face as a breeze hit them and tensed, ready to switch if the salt moved. Ryou tried to look down at the circle but the spirit's eyes were locked onto the air above them. He opened his mouth to ask him to check, but the spirit spoke first.

"Mewet."

The air in front of them moved, the sand in the distance going unfocused, like looking through a foggy window. Ryou held his breath as a female figure took shape before them, a linen shenti around her hips and a woven wrap over her shoulders. Silver hair covered her forehead and shoulders, violet-grey eyes soft as she smiled down at the spirit occupying Ryou's body. He felt the spirit shift where he was seated, fingers digging into the Ring to keep from trying to embrace the ghost. Ryou let out his breath slowly, relaxing back against the wall. It worked. They had summoned someone, someone the spirit knew and had wanted to see.

The words flowed from the spirit's borrowed lips though Ryou couldn't understand any of them. It wasn't English or Japanese and while Ryou had only a middling grasp of Arabic, the words didn't match that either. The melodic inflections reminded Ryou of the unfamiliar words the spirit used to call the ghost. He sat quietly, feeling like he was intruding but unable to leave. The spirit and the ghost spoke until the lanterns burned low. Ryou felt their joined energy used to keep the spell active flagging and nudged at the spirit's mind.

"I'm sor-" His words cut short at the first feel of wetness on his cheeks. His breath caught in his throat, overwhelmed by the spirit's emotion. Tears. He was crying. Actually crying, albeit quietly, as he spoke to the ghost. She had said something, one word she repeated several times, and it triggered tears from the spirit. Ryou cleared his throat as the lanterns flickered, poised to retake control. "I'm sorry, spirit. You have to say goodbye."

The spirit's growl reverberated through his mind but Ryou stayed firm, already in control of one hand. Rushed words issued from the spirit, desperate and scared, unable to converse with the ghost and fight off Ryou. His hand hovered over the circle, ready to break it, when the ghost leaned over them. Incapable of breaching the circle, the ghost lifted her hand, palm facing them. The spirit shifted to his stolen knees, palm of the hand he yet controlled pressed to the protective barrier, unable to touch, crying harder, words choking him.

The pull on the spirit when he released the Ring was like a rip current, the lack of contact untethering him from Ryou's body. In a panic of self-preservation, Ryou wiped away part of the circle and grabbed the pendant, ending the spell, the ghost's voice still lingering in the air as it disappeared. The spirit dropped back to his heels, head bent, body racked with sobs. Ryou retreated fully back into their mind, his heart aching at the spirit's pain. Though the spirit had caused him so much grief, though he'd hurt his friends, though he planned to destroy Yugi's puzzle spirit, Ryou still felt bonded to him and thus, empathized with his pain.

He understood loss. Not on the scale the spirit had experienced, but he understood it all the same. When his mother and sister had died, Ryou at least had his father - at least until he was pushed away when his father buried himself in work. In a way, he thought he and the spirit were similar. They'd both lost their families and were left on their own, but where the spirit had become hardened and focused on revenge, Ryou strove for a normal, if lonely, life.

Ryou gave the spirit all the time he needed even as the lanterns died and left them in darkness. He was almost dozing when he felt the spirit hovering over him in the shared space of their minds. The spirit's eyes were red and swollen, face tear-stained and Ryou knew he must look much the same. "It's done." Ryou nodded, straightening from the wall and getting to his feet. He would need to retake control of his body now.

"Who...?"

The spirit turned his face, Ryou's face, away. "My mother." Ryou caught the barest flash of teeth as he scraped them over his lip. He reached for the spirit, only to have his attempt dodged. "I kept you here in case... In case I didn't want to come back. In case sentiment tried to distract me from my purpose, from avenging her and my family, from getting vengeance for Kul Elna. I need to finish what I've started. And so I will." He pivoted, stalking in the direction of his soul room.

"Spirit!" Ryou stood with his hand outstretched, not daring to grab for him again but wanting to stop him. "Spirit, wait. What was that word she was saying?" The spirit paused at the heavy door guarding his soul room, not looking back at his host. His back tensed visibly, hands fisted at his sides. "She used it several times, but I've never heard that word before. What was it?"

"My name. Mewet was saying my name."  
  
With that, the door slammed behind him, sealing him off from Ryou and any other questions, leaving Ryou to clean up and get them to their next destination: the pharaoh's tomb.

 

* * *

"MOTHER!" His throat was raw from screaming, from breathing in the ash of their burning village, of their burning neighbors. "MOTHER!" He was a child again, kneeling in the sand, screaming and sobbing, bereft in his overwhelming loss. They were gone. Everything was gone. His whole life consumed by fire, sacrificed by a mad priest. He tipped his head back and screamed his rage and pain to the sky until his voice broke. "M-mother..." He dropped his head forehead onto the sand, weak and weary, sleep overtaking his small exhausted body.

In his dream, gentle hands cupped his face and rubbed the soot and sand from his cheeks. The hands brushed his hair off his face, swooping it away from his eyes. Whispers and moans and wailing filled the air around him, loud enough to intrude on his slumber, but the hands protected him. His village was suffering. His people were denied access to the afterlife without their bodies. He was the last. He turned his face into the tender hands, opening his violet-grey eyes. His mother smiled down at him, quiet among the noise of their dead. She leaned down and rubbed their noses together as she so often had before. "Mother..."

The sound of his childlike voice awoke the spirit from his memory-dream. He felt cold, empty, the loss of his mother sharper for having seen her ghost again. He'd told her his plan to challenge the pharaoh's spirit. He would avenge her, avenge all of Kul Elna or he would join them in the eternal darkness. Losing was very much an option, but he did not fear it. He would be free to join his village, his mother, for eternity.  
  
Another ghost to wander the sands.


End file.
